Themed List Challenge # 1 - Apples

[Hana]

This exercise is based on a certain theme, and seven words or phrases following that theme. You may pick any one or all of the prompts from the list and write a short entry, prose or poetry, about what these words or phrases inspire in you.

theme # 1:
a p p l e s
1. forbidden fruit.
2. apples of discord.
3. poisoned apple.
4. apples and oranges.
5. apple of my eye.
6. an apple a day.
7. bad apple.

Apples hold a lot of symbolic meanings and mythological associations, one example being in Greek myths. This fruit also features in some well-known fairy tales or folklore. For this first theme challenge I thought that the apple would help you think of ideas easily.

I look forward to seeing what ideas and stories members come up with. ^^​

 

[chaosheart13]

Her Gift​

He stared at the girl before him, hard. "Why did you bring me here?" he asked gruffly, "I know how much you hate small talk." She smiled and offered him a bowl of seeds.

"Hungry? You can snack on those if you are," she said, noticing his eyes light up at the food and he immediately, greedily dug in. "So, how has your day been?"

"Good," he grunted, chewing loudly, "The customers called me and said I had done a great job."

"Even thought others did most of the work?" His glare at the woman was cold.

"I did my part, you did yours, they did there's," he said simply, still eating the seeds by the handful.

"Still, you could've at least credit us where credit is due."

"I'm the project manager, whatever I say goes." Her smile was sickly sweet as she spoke.

"Do you really think you deserve that position?"

"Of course I do! I-" He doubled over in pain, the breath knocked out of him. "Ugh, my stomach..."

"You should eat more of those seeds, maybe that will help," she suggested. He downed a couple more handfuls until he felt his body going numb. "W-What Gah..."

"Shh, here, let's go over to the couch, okay?" she said, helping him shuffle over to the couch. He laid down on it, having become very pale. His eyes were wide as she sat next to him. "You know as much as I do that you don't deserve that position. Only a hard worker does. And you, my friend, are not a hard worker." His expression turned angry before turning pained again. "If anything, I should be the one in control. I did most of the work while you men just lazed around. Well, not all of them. But you especially."

She just grinned wickedly as his vision started turning black. "So, how do you like those apple seeds? I heard they have arsenic in them. But I'm no doctor, so how should I know?"

 

[Hana]

3. poisoned apple.

People wonder why she did it, afterwards.

The story and the plot of her life was so simple. A motherless young princess who escaped the clutches of her abusive, suspicious stepmother. An oblivious father who had faded away long before she could tell him all that happened as he looked over the kingdom.

Snow White met the seven dwarves in a cottage in the woods.

Snow White befriended seven dwarves and was allowed to stay in exchange for doing tasks for them.

The first attempt came with the ribbons. Pretty and like liquid spilling out on thin white fingers in shades of beautiful red and blue. Snow White looked at it and listened to the honeyed words spilled into the curve of a small white ear, and smiled.

The second attempt came with the poisoned comb. She ran it through thick dark locks that fell to her waist like gleaming obsidian made liquid, urged on by a sibilant hiss of praise to her beauty. Snow White smiled.

Anyone who knows the story knows that she survived these.

What anyone who knows how the story goes is that the dwarves weren't generous for nothing in exchange. Creatures of the forest and of such different natures to humans do not offer anything. Everything always must come with a price, and what did a princess who ran away from her wealth and riches have to offer?

Her fine clothes, the jewels she wore in her ears and around her neck? A smile with her fair face and eyes that gleamed with light and innocence?

Those would have been spent away in the days that passed as she toiled and troubled, or whatever had happened in that quaint little cottage in the woods.

Oh, but people do not like to hear the other sides of the story.

When that apple tumbled into her hands, perfectly red and plump with promises, Snow White knew. She was not the naive little princess that everyone thought she was, not after living under the shadow of her stepmother for most of her life.

Not after what she had stumbled into the day she left the castle. Not after the huntsman had spared her, moved by her beauty as he was.

Snow White knew. And with that knowledge she still bit into the poisoned apple.

And now.

She looks at the charming face of the prince she is destined to marry after awakening from blessed sleep unending, and Snow White... Smiles.